Phonecall
by FemaleSpock
Summary: Artegor recieves a phonecall from Aarch which changes everything. Starts off slightly angsty but the degenerates into fluff. A kind of sequel to the Aarch diaries. Contains some out of characterness and of course Aarch/Artegor.


Phonecall

**Disclaimer: I do not own Galactik football etc. And I make no money from this fic.**

**Okay so this is kind of a sequel to the Aarch diaries but you don't have to have read it for this to make sense (but it would help). Oh and it is set between the second galactik football cup and the third galactik football.**

Artegor was sitting watching some training videos of the shadows making notes. He had been doing this for hours so he decided to take a break. So he sat in his chair in his empty room and thought. Thinking was something Artegor did a lot of; it wasn't like he had much else to do. All he really ever had to do was work, and working wasn't the same as it used to be.

Before, his work was his way of achieving his victory over Aarch, his revenge. The Shadows had been his instrument of revenge, he had been using them all along, he hadn't really ever cared about the team before. He used to be so ruthless, so driven but it just wasn't important anymore. This was part of why he had come back to the Shadows, the shadows planet had been his home for years, the team had given him a lot and all he had done was take. So he returned to make amends, so he could be the coach that he should have been all along.

And he was coaching them, in some ways it was the same as it had been before but in other ways it was different. Gone were the 'we must crush Aarch' speeches, gone was the vendetta, he had taken down the pictures of Aarch which had lots of little holes where darts had been thrown. But his life was as empty as ever, from the start all he had ever had was football and Aarch and the two had become interconnected in his mind.

And that was the other reason he had rejoined as the Shadows coach rather than stay with the snow kids. When he had played for the Akillians and then with the Shadows he had a football career and he had loving Aarch, after Aarch had left he still had football and he had the hatred of Aarch to replace his feelings of love. But now, he had been cured of his smog poisoning, he could see clearly now, which wasn't necessarily a good thing. When he had been the assistant coach of the snow kids it was just difficult. He and Aarch were friends again, and being friends was infinitely harder than hating him. Friendship was such a middle ground and Artegor was an extremist by nature. So when he had his chance to leave he took it, he just couldn't stand being in such close proximity to Aarch, being friends was just so complicated. Not to mention the fact that his feelings that he had kept at bay by filling himself with hate had started to resurface, the sadness and pain of being abandoned seeped through occasionally. Everything had happened so long ago but the feelings of Artegor's adolescent self had been suppressed and in doing this they had been preserved in perfect detail. A psychologist would have said that he had never let go of his pain, he had been running from it for so long that when he stopped it caught up to him.

Artegor didn't like the feeling of not being in control of his own feelings, before he had been out of control with hate, but hate felt good so he didn't really mind. The phone rang, interrupting Artegor's thoughts. He glanced at the phone, and saw that it was Aarch's number. If he had been thinking about any other person just before they had called he would have said it was an indication of psychic powers. But he thinking about Aarch was hardly unusual so he could attribute this to coincidence. He was tempted to let it go to voicemail; he didn't really want to talk to Aarch but Aarch was probably calling about something important so he forced himself to pick up the phone.

"Hello, Artegor?" Aarch's voice said from the phone.

He hesitated, despite the fact that he knew it was Aarch calling he irrationally didn't expect to hear Aarch's voice.

"Artegor?" Aarch repeated, sounding worried.

"Yes, I'm here, so what prompts your call?" he asked awkwardly. Now it was Aarch's turn to be quiet, Artegor waited worried before Aarch said "Well, I need to talk to you about something, I'd rather talk to you about it in person, could we perhaps meet somewhere?"

"Okay" Artegor said, he could hardly refuse, could he?

"Okay, so where's more convenient for you? I could come to the Shadows planet, and meet you tomorrow, if you like?" Aarch asked.

"No, I'll come to Akillian and I'll meet you in Planet Akillian, alright?" Artegor knew he sounded rude but he didn't want Aarch to visit him there, to see how empty his life was. It would be like two separate worlds colliding.

"Oh, if you are sure then" Aarch didn't seem to mind.

"I am, I'll call you when I get there" Artegor said wanting the conversation to end.

"Okay then, see you then" Aarch said putting down the phone.

Artegor sighed and went looking for a flight to Akillian. After much looking he booked a flight to Akillian that left at 8 tomorrow morning. The ticket was expensive but Artegor could afford it, he got a healthy salary as coach of the shadows plus he had inherited a great deal from his parents. Then he decided that he might as well try to sleep. So he did try to sleep but he had too much on his mind. He tried to mentally prepare himself for the meeting ahead but he didn't have a clue why Aarch wanted to speak to him, thousands of possibilities flashed through his mind but he just couldn't find anyway to guess.

The next day came and Artegor got on his flight. It went pretty quickly and 2 hours later he was on Akillian. He took a taxi to Planet Akillian and then he called Aarch. 10 minutes later he was sitting at a secluded table with Aarch. They exchanged pleasantries at first until an uneasy silence engulfed them, and Artegor waited for an explanation.

"So anyway, what this is about is…well…as you know Rocket is staying with me, and while I was out he managed to find my diary, you know that one that you gave me all those years ago" Aarch said looking intently at Artegor to gage whether he understood what he was saying. At first confusion flashed over Artegor's face and then he looked alarmed "And the diary contained stuff about us?" he asked, despite knowing the answer.

"Yeah" Aarch said shortly.

"So how did he take it?" Artegor asked, not really being able to process it.

"He was okay with it, he said he wouldn't tell anyone and he's a good kid, so we don't have to worry about him. But, that's not really what this is about. The thing is, all this has brought a lot of memories back to me, in fact it made me read my diary, which I hadn't really done before" he paused and glanced at Artegor who didn't say anything before continuing.

"Anyway, I guess I finally came to my senses, do you remember our time together playing together for the Shadows?"

"Yes" Artegor said, how could he not remember, it was one of the few times in his life he had been happy.

"For the longest time I could barely remember, everything got so muddled in my brain, I think it was a side effect of the smog, but now I remember how everything was and I know that we need to talk, we're doing this about 15 years too late, but….." he trailed off.

"We need to talk? About what?" Artegor asked completely baffled by Aarch's thought process.

"Artegor, we had the worst break-up in history, you resented me like 15 years and now we are back friends again. At the time everything was so sudden and with everything that happened afterwards, I just think that we need to talk about it. I mean for example, you do realise the reason why I left the shadows?" Aarch was either feeling stupidly nostalgic or he really did think it would help things. Artegor breathed a deep sigh "I never understood you Aarch. I never understood at all, you left without giving any explanation. I know you had the smog poisoning but you could have gone to your rehab and then come back, even if you weren't going to play, you could have come back, you could have visited. What about a phone call? You cast me aside as if I were Adium" whilst Artegor wasn't usually prone to fits of emotionalism, Aarch could always bring out the worst in him.

"Oh Artegor, it's so easy to just blame it all on the smog. But it wasn't just because of that. It was the isolation, we were the only Akillians on the planet, and we just could relate to the shadows in the same way, they really just socialised within themselves. We were all alone, with no family and no friends. So that was a strain generally, but it was murder on our relationship, I mean even people who get on the best get sick of each other when they have nothing else. And not to mention the guilt over abandoning Akillian, just being on the Shadows felt like I had betrayed everyone." Aarch looked sad.

"I never realised it was like that for you. I just didn't care about that; all I needed was football and you. I didn't need friends, I didn't need Akillian and I certainly didn't need my meddling parents" Artegor guessed this was the difference between himself and Aarch, Aarch had never thought of him in the way that he had thought of Aarch. Aarch was his world, but Aarch had a life outside of Artegor.

"But you know what the main thing was? It was the secrecy, I mean nobody knew about us except us, is just made me feel so cut off. And it made me feel ashamed. I just couldn't live like that."

"I see, I'm glad I have an explanation now…but was there really any point in dragging all this up again?" if Artegor didn't know better he would have thought that Aarch was just trying to hurt his feelings.

"Let me ask you a question first; do you still love me?" he said completely shocking Artegor.

"WHAT?" Artegor asked standing up suddenly, before hastily sitting down again after realising he was drawing attention to himself.

"Just answer the question, please" Aarch's tone was soft.

"I do, you know that, I don't see why you have to make me say it" he said looking away in a mixture of anger and embarrassment.

"I didn't know that so that's why I was asking. So does this mean I have a chance?" he asked with an oddly hopeful tone.

"A chance? At what?" Artegor could be dense sometimes.

"Well I was thinking of asking you out" Aarch said trying for a flippant tone but sounding very nervous.

"Well you don't know until you ask" Artegor didn't want to be the one to make the first move.

"So Artegor, do you want to maybe go out sometime?" Aarch said sounding very much like a teenage boy.

"Uh, yes that would be nice" Artegor said unable to believe what he was hearing.

"Wait, do you think it would be weird though, like kissing now that we are elderly?" Aarch asked. Before waiting for an answer he leaned across the table and gave Artegor a passionate kiss. A waitress who came to ask whether they wanted any more dreams dropped her tray in surprise but they didn't notice. After a while, it became to uncomfortable learning over the table so they discontinued. Artegor was actually blushing.

"I guess this means we're together again, but you know we can't make the same mistakes we made before, we have to make it public" Aarch said taking a more serious tone.

"Public?" Artegor wasn't to keen on giving tell all interviews, he found it humiliating.

"Well when we walk out of here let's hold hands in the street, someone will get a picture and then it will be news, we won't have to say anything" Aarch said smiling confidently.

Artegor was less than convinced but he went along with it anyway, he'd do anything to please Aarch.

2 days later….

Rocket was sitting in his room watching an old match between the Wambas and the Rykers and was taking notes when Tia burst into his room.

"Rocket! Have you seen this? I fell out of my chair when I read it!" she said passing him a newspaper.

The newspaper had a huge picture of Artegor and Aarch walking down the street holding hands and there was a speculative article. He read it slowly knowing Tia was waiting anxiously for his reaction. After 10 minutes he looked up and said in complete seriousness "That was very poor journalism, there were so many spelling errors, don't they have spell check?"

Tia proceeded to hit him with a pillow.

**Okay that's the end! I know that Aarch and Artegor were acting very out of character especially at the end but I just wanted them to have a happy ending, is that so wrong? Anyway please review…but no flames please reviews like "Your fic sucks" do not help me become a better writer, you are entitled to your opinion but please qualify it so I can correct mistakes in my writing style.**


End file.
